Protestor to George Allen: "Have you ever used the N word ?"

Allen cancels event because of protesters

Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 05:11:07 AM PDT

Sen. George Allen gave the slip to protesters, supporters and city officials today, bypassing an afternoon stop in downtown Staunton for an unannounced lunch break at a local drive-in restaurant.

The last-minute change in plans came minutes after a man identifying himself as a University of Virginia law school student broke in front of reporters at an event at Staunton's Holiday Inn, forcefully asking the senator, "Have you ever used the word n-----?"

Allen, caught off-guard but still smiling, put his hands on the man's shoulders and offered to speak to him later, but aides quickly led the man out of the room and Allen soon boarded his bus and left.

"Once in a while you get ambushed," Allen said before leaving the event, a luncheon attended by a nearly all-white crowd of Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce members. "That's OK. That's part of it."

The senator was expected to roll up to City Hall half an hour later, but about a dozen Democratic protesters, an equal number of local Republicans and several city council members and city staff who had gathered along Beverley Street were left shaking their heads.